To Benjamin Franklin from Matthew Mease, 9 June 1777
From Matthew Mease7
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Paris, Hotel de Modene Wednesday
6 oClock PM June 9th, 1777
Sir
By desire of some Gentlemen who wish for the pleasure of seeing you, I am induced to take the liberty of requesting you will be good enough to inform me whether it will convenient for you to indulge them with an interview to morrow morning; and if so, what hour will be most agreeable, as they are desirous of your opinion and advice on a plan for doing some bussiness which they will then submit to your Consideration.8 If you should not otherwise determine it, they will be bold enough to wait upon you at 10 OClock, Your Pardon for this trouble and an Answer will very much oblige Sir Your most Obedient Humble Servant
Matthew Mease
Addressed: Monsieur / Monsieur Franklin / A Passy
Notation: Matthur Meas Paris 9e. June 1777
7. His brother, Robert Mease of Philadelphia, had arrived in France the previous December: above, XXIII, 103 n. Matthew went to England, soon promised to bring William Carmichael’s mistress to Paris, and must have arrived there himself almost immediately before writing this letter. Stevens, Facsimiles, I, no. 49, p. 2; II, no. 141; V, no. 475, p. 1.
8. They were, we assume, Capt. John Green and John Hall, who had come to Paris with Mease. Green, formerly in the service of Willing, Morris & Co., had apparently had his ship impounded in England; he was on his way to Nantes, to seek the help of Thomas Morris in recovering her or getting another. Hall, supercargo on a vessel of which his father was part owner, had been captured and escaped and was intent on getting home. Green subsequently appeared in Nantes, but we have found no further trace of Hall. Ibid., pp. 1–2; Naval Docs., VIII, 548; Samuel W. Woodhouse, “The Voyage of the Empress of China,” PMHB, LXIII (1939), 25 n; JW to the commissioners below, July 26.